


out of respect to the paper crown

by robinsegg



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Over the Garden Wall Fusion, Character Study, F/F, Internalized Transphobia, M/M, Multi, Oh And There Is A Cat, Oh yes my friends it is an over the garden wall au, Published right on time for halloween!, The Unknown Is An Allegory For Being Trans, Time shit? It's more 'time is a circle' shit U Know, Trans Female Character, Trans Gansey, gansey doesn't know her sexuality and neither do i, like. it is Heavy Handed, there is also some henry/gansey stuff?? sort of??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 07:19:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16300568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinsegg/pseuds/robinsegg
Summary: "Led through the mist, by the milk light of moon, all that was lost is revealedOur long bygone burdens, mere echoes of the spring, but where have we come?And where shall we end? If dreams can't come true, then why not pretend?"It is Halloween, and then it is not. And Gansey is alone.





	1. Oh, come on now young stranger, weren't you someone's son? How'd you find this depot, 'cause it ain't where you belong.

**Author's Note:**

> AND SO WE ENTER THE UNKNOWN. This is a beast (haha) I've been working on since... August? Which is a lot, since I only finished the actual books IN August. Anyway, it's an otgw au! Just in time for Halloween!
> 
> There's a lot going on here but mostly it's about Gansey being a trans girl and royalty sort of and the Unknown as a type of purgatory and also that awkward space when you've figured out you're trans but you haven't transitioned yet, U Feel? Also- I'm trans! I'm a trans man. A trans am. I'd just like to announce that before you all read my terrible 13,000-word fic about transness and magic and also pickled cabbage.
> 
> I would ALSO like to announce that I do not share Ronan's opinions, whatever they may be, about pickled cabbage. He is his own person. Pickled cabbage is great.
> 
> I have a playlist for this as well. It's weird. There's a lot of shit on it. I'm extremely fond of it. https://open.spotify.com/user/v8aqp7hroag6lci02e44n2rq4/playlist/6xy38u83GmKZxhD1tARL1H?si=yLZ8N4u_TIKTklE0PsS2sw

It is Halloween, and then it is not.

 

Gansey is with Henry and Blue, trekking through the woodlands of Oregon and desperately missing Adam and Ronan (and Noah, but she’s always missing Noah desperately), and then she is not. Then she is in a place that is definitely  _ a _ forest, but not the forest she was previously in. Bigfoot was a stupid idea. She realizes this now. (This is also why Gansey thinks, sometimes, such as when Gansey realized that the three of them hadn’t seen a fruit or vegetable in perhaps three days, that it was a terrible idea to let her, Blue, and Henry go on a road trip unsupervised.)

 

Because Gansey is alone. And it’s late afternoon now, instead of 11 P.M. She shakes her head and calls out, “Henry? Jane?” to no reply. She wonders absently if this place is like Cabeswater, another forest with a dormant line. As she gets up, turning back to see if Blue or Henry are there, she sees- nothing. No break in the forest, no sign that there was anything other than this forest and its disconcerting solitude.

 

She calls out for them once again and walks back in the direction she must have come from, in some misguided hope that she will pop back up where she once was. Nothing happens, and Gansey is unsurprised but still disappointed.

 

She sits down again, adjusting the crown that has fallen down over her eyes.

 

Henry had made it out of cardboard, sitting on the curb outside of a craft store they had gone into. It was the day before Halloween, and Blue and Henry were both determined to wear costumes, despite the three of them having no plans besides the vague and ever-present option of exploring the woods.

 

“C’mere, Gansey-boy!” He had crowed, waving her over from where she was sitting against the wall. Gansey’s smile became a little more Senator Gansey at that, but she plopped down next to him all the same.

 

“Bow your head, I’ve got to make sure this fits.” She obliged, letting Henry slide on a- well. Well, it was an object that  _ could  _ look like a crown if you squinted at it. It was brown and oblong, with a few clumsily made points, one of which looked bent beyond repair. It was the epitome of a child’s interpretation of a crown. Gansey was a little in love with it.

 

“Hm. Feels good?” She nodded. “Good. There’s your Halloween costume. Not very fancy because  _ someone  _ wouldn’t give us any good ideas.”

 

“I gave you ideas!”   
  


“Now, my dear Gansey-boy, all your ideas fell in the realm of ‘lame,’ and required an attention to detail that neither I nor Blue had the energy or interest to put in to cook up a costume within a week. You seemed to want a risen souffle. My good friend, the costume would have been a Pillsbury crescent and not, in fact, a risen souffle.”

 

“I would’ve been fine with whatever you came up with, you know. The historical accuracy wasn’t necessary, just a recommendation.” Henry snorted. “It was!” Gansey insisted.

 

“And now you’re a historically inaccurate king. Tell me three months in advance next time.” Blue had burst out of the craft store in a magnificent flurry of fabric and glitter at that moment, cutting their conversation short. She was radiant as ever, hair all over the place, decked out in some strange patchwork dress made up of clashing shades of orange and green. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for her, but Blue was enchanting, and it was like meeting her for the first time all over again- some sensation like they had done this all before, like this was meant to be, like Gansey had been living underwater all her life and this was her first breath of air.

 

Gansey thought to herself, not for the first time, that she was extremely embarrassing.

 

“Jane!” Gansey said with just the right amount of delight, and Blue had draped some deep red fabric over her head, declared that would be Gansey’s cape, and that had been her Halloween outfit.

 

Gansey wondered when she would get to see them again. This was an adventure, surely, something suiting the spirit of Halloween perfectly, but she had gotten used to sharing the journey. It had been years since she traversed magically active areas alone- she’d always had Ronan and Noah and Adam and Blue, and more recently, Henry. Gansey hadn’t missed this solitude, not really. The loneliness was fine when she was a young teenager globetrotting alone, not just to find Glendower but to ‘find herself.’ (It had taken a while, but she did, eventually, find herself. England was nice, not just for Malory, but for the women she had met. They were delightfully weird, friends and colleagues of Malory who went by the names of Byrne and Tissot. They had never told her their first names, and she wasn’t sure how to phrase it so as to make it sound polite and not dreadfully awkward. Tissot would often call her a hobgoblin affectionately, or- Gansey hoped it was affectionate. They had a little house that was cluttered and probably full of fire hazards. There was something that had risen up inside her whenever she saw the two of them together, unfeminine and in love and unashamed about everything that they were comprised of. Byrne, too, was like her, trans and still- not right. Being trans meant, by definition, being ‘not right,’ but neither Gansey nor Byrne were what a trans woman was supposed to look like- was supposed to  _ want  _ to look like. Byrne had short brown hair, and she’d never seen her in a dress. Her wardrobe was comprised entirely of tweed, Gansey was convinced, and yet she was still, obviously, a woman. She was also the first trans woman Gansey had met, and the first she had seen that looked like how  _ she  _ wanted to look. And somehow, she still hadn’t realized until she was 17.) Now she was dedicatedly globetrotting with her girlfriend and her Henry. The fact of them being there made her feel wanted, like she belonged wherever she went, and not just in the magic of Henrietta, though it would always be home, for her.

 

But she was here now, decked out in a lovingly terrible handmade costume in some strange new world. Gansey thinks that this is, at least, something different, something that is decidedly  _ not right.  _ The slog of day to day normality (or their estimate of it) is exhausting- pretending to be okay with the end of this journey, okay in general, as if Gansey doesn’t have a forest inside of her and as if she isn’t the center of so many deaths, so many  _ wrong  _ deaths. She had seen the aftermath of her resurrection from clouded lenses- unable to process it or unable to process her death. She wouldn’t rip apart that newfound peace her friends had found by demanding something new. Or demanding they reopen cold cases. 

 

But- still. She wanted that adventure. That sense of purpose. Aimlessness was not her natural state, and the time she spent obsessed with Glendower was gone. She had to fill it up somehow, and Gansey wasn’t sure with what. So- this was distressing, yes, but a comfort too, in the way that an old horror is more comforting than the uncertainty of something new. This was her domain.

 

So Gansey took stock of what she had in her bag. Remembered her phone (Dead. She sighed forlornly at the state of affairs in Apple these days). And then she began walking.

 

The forest wasn’t especially odd. She had traveled through a great number of forests, odd and normal, and this definitely veered towards the normal side- the seasons didn’t change, the animals, from what glimpses she got of them, were ordinary enough, and aside from the obvious, she didn’t feel as if anything was extraordinary. She certainly wasn’t feeling as if she was about to get obliterated from the face of the earth. But there was something… off about the forest. In little ways. Like the single path cutting straight through the woods. And also the fact that she had tripped into a magical (presumedly) goddamn forest. But otherwise. Pretty mundane for her day to day life.

 

She isn’t sure how long she’s been walking. It was hard to track time when her watch was off- still at 11:05 P.M. All she knew was that her feet hurt. There was no difference in the forest as of yet, just thick clusters of trees and even more thickly clustered trees beyond. It would be so easy to get lost in the forest. It probably housed so many miracles. Looking between two branches, she peered inside. The darkness was broken by faint spots of light, and there was a lantern, swinging softly in the distance. She could hear the chopping of a tree and was about to call out when she heard a low, unmistakable,  _ moo. _

 

Distracted, she turned around to see a farm. Gansey wasn’t sure how to deal with this new development. There was some number of cows clustered on top of a field, and a wheat field beyond that. She spots a man bent over some cabbages, and brightens.  _ Humanity.  _

 

“Excuse me, sir-” Gansey calls out, and the man immediately straightens, turning to go back inside. She takes a close look at his outfit as she jogs after him- it’s like something out of one of her many history texts. Sort of, the 1840s, if the 1840s was dreamt up by a teenager with a very limited knowledge of the fashion of the time. He’s wearing worn out overalls and a starched shirt she assumes was once white, although it’s faded and worn out as well. There’s a cap firmly lodged onto the man’s head, and Gansey can see a sweater that has been shucked off in the distance.

 

She calls out to him again, finally catching up after hurriedly strolling down the path in what Ronan would call her ‘royal walk’ as he snorted derogatively. The fact that Gansey can categorize Ronan’s snorts is probably a worrisome thing.

 

“Sir- I’m sorry to bother you but could I-” She stops short as the man whirls around, a sneer on his face. He has wild black locks shoved under his cap and bright blue eyes that are stark against his brown skin. “Ronan? What are you- is this a dream? Did you suck me into one of your dreams?” Gansey doesn’t say this, but she’s also wondering why Ronan is standing in front of a creaky old farmhouse, dressed like someone google image searched ‘Irish farmer’ and copy/pasted the first result there.

 

“The cabbages aren’t for sale.” He said, glaring. “I don’t know where you got my name but you better get off my property.” Ronan’s accent was thick and unmistakably Irish and Gansey could barely understand it. This situation was entirely too much like a fever dream for her to be comfortable. 

 

“Oh, no, sorry, I don’t want to buy your cabbages I just-”   
  
“Do you have something against my cabbages?” Ronan glares at her. She is losing her mind.

 

“No! Not at all! I have nothing against cabbages, yours or anyone else’s, I’ve just never found a recipe that I particularly liked with them in it. I’m sure your cabbages are great, though.” Ronan looks thoroughly unimpressed.

 

“Have you tried pickling them?”

 

“I’m sorry?”   
  
“Have you tried pickling cabbages?” Ronan repeats, slowly, as if Gansey is stupid and not struck with the knowledge that she is discussing cabbage recipes with some sort of Irish farmer version of Ronan. For all that Gansey was expecting magic and supernatural events, she wasn’t expecting- this. Cabbage recipes seem to be wholly out of this world.

 

“I can’t say that I have. But I’ll put that on my to-do list, I’m always open to suggestions. I was just wondering if you knew where this place is. I seem to be, well, lost.” Gansey sends out a hopeful smile and Ronan raises an eyebrow.

 

“You’re really not from around here. This is the Unknown. And don’t try pickled cabbage, it’s shit.” He turns back around, picking up his sweater from where it’s been discarded, and leaves the door open. Gansey assumes that he would’ve slammed the door if he didn’t want her to come in, and hurries after him.

 

The farmhouse she steps into is similar to the Barns, but it feels much less real. It’s something out of a storybook, one that’s shoved to the back of the bookshelves, left to gather dust and lose its gilding. The windows don’t let in much light, and the crookedly built house is full of dark corners. It’s dusty, and Gansey sneezes three times in succession. The colors are all so faded, dull greys and blues, and she has the sensation that Ronan has been here, alone, tending to his cabbages for a very long time. It’s the antithesis to the Barns, with all its loving energy and the sense that no matter how long you’ve been away, it will always be a home for you. Gansey can tell that there were desperate attempts to make this a home- the warm-looking throw blankets in the living room; the clean kitchen that’s obviously underused; the fact that there is an actual  _ cat  _ on the windowsill, good  _ lord-  _ but it is cold and empty and Ronan is the most alive thing here. Gansey feels a rush, an intense need to bundle Irish-Farmer-Ronan up and take him with her, far away from here with its loneliness and its cabbages and its singular other living thing besides Ronan, a tiny angry cat that pushes a cup off the counter. She is a Gansey, and a Ronan is a Ronan, regardless of if that Ronan is a stereotypical farmer who is very, very Irish and also possibly from the 1800s. It’s basically her job to want to wrap Ronan up and take him away from anything that is terrible and sad.

 

And to be fair to the cat, he is just another Ronan in disguise, a very small one with no opposable thumbs and the lack of an ability to swear.

 

While Gansey was ruminating on Conan (Cat-Ronan) Ronan seems to have sat down. There’s a jar of something pink in front of him, and he is determinedly munching on it as he stares Gansey down.

 

Gansey sits across from him. “What is that?” She asks curiously.

 

“Pickled cabbage,” Ronan says shortly.

 

“But I thought you said- nevermind. You said something about the Unknown? Can I ask what that is?” Ronan is silent, chewing on a piece of pickled cabbage, and Gansey refuses to break eye contact. She knows this game, and Ronan has never managed to intimidate her- a Ronan with a ridiculous gray knit cap wasn’t going to be able to do it now.

 

Finally, Ronan snorts derisively. “The Unknown is where you are. Not my fucking farmhouse, this whole land. This is the Unknown, and the Beast and the Woodsman haunt these woods, and you’d do well not to go out after dark.” Ronan flashes a wicked, malicious grin, and points outside, to where the sun has already started to set, bathing Ronan’s sad, homely kitchen in the warm orange light. “But you’re going to do it anyway.”

 

“I need to get home,” Gansey says firmly, firmer than she feels because there is still Ronan to contend with, a Ronan that she will have to leave if she wants to get back home, and dear god, that’s a heavy-handed metaphor if she’s ever heard one. “I need to get home.” She repeats, beginning to gnaw on her lip, a habit that her parents had never quite managed to stop her from doing.

 

“Are you even real back home?” Ronan scowls, and Gansey is bewildered by the phrase. “Do they even know you? The real you? Not the costume you put on every day?” Oh. She forces herself not to move. She knows Ronan’s game, knows his ability to strike quick and fast, and she won’t let herself bleed for him. But- she still feels seen, in a way that makes her want to curl up and hide the transparent parts of herself. Gansey doesn’t like this feeling- this gnawing hunger to let herself stay with Ronan and eat pickled cabbage together and hold Conan to her chest because it would be  _ easy.  _ It isn’t because she wants this life, this desperate carving out of a home from bare bones, but because it would be easier than going back home. It would be easier to be with this Ronan, in the middle of the woods in a place called the Unknown, than it would be to find a way back home and find a way to claw out the words that always get lodged in her throat. 

 

“I need to find my way back.” Ronan’s scowl grows deeper, seemingly etched into his face. The quiet look he had on his face before is gone. It looks like he’s always been angry, will always be angry. Gansey wants to help, but she’s so afraid, terrified by the fact that this Ronan sees through her so easy, and she feels fury, some righteous thing that boils deep in her gut and is rising. She’s pushed it down for so long, just like everything else that wasn’t deemed appropriate, when she was six years old and asking if she could wear a dress, when she severed her connection to her body so fully that it doesn’t even feel like it’s hers most of the time. She walks around in a body that fits too wrong, longing rolling around deep inside her like crashing of waves, and Ronan  _ sees-  _

 

She is so tired. She thinks about how easy it would be to stay here. How Ronan could wrap his arms around her. They could sleep in the same bed, clutching each other because there was no one else to touch. She could peel off that outer layer, be someone more vulnerable. He wouldn’t begrudge Gansey for that. She could burrow up in the corners of this creaky old house and let herself drift off, and it would be so, so easy. It could be nice. She wouldn’t have to be a real person anymore. They could collect dust in the back of a library, fade away.

 

“Do you even know my name?” Gansey says finally, less a sentence than a long breath of air.

 

She doesn’t know what she’s waiting for. What she wants as an answer. Gansey isn’t sure there’s a right or wrong answer at all. “No,” Ronan finally croaks out, a last clinging attempt to keep her there. And Gansey understands. She still isn’t staying.

 

“Take the cabbage.” He says, after a long stretch of silence, marked only by the change of light in the kitchen and Conan’s screech of a meow as he claws at Gansey’s corduroy pants. Ronan pushes the jar towards her. Gansey pulls out a granola bar and digs out a pen as a trade. It’s not much, but Ronan doesn’t seem to care. Something to remember her, the sole visitor, by.

 

“Beware the Beast. Beware the Woodsman. Stay on the path, there should be a village if you keep going straight, and don’t draw attention to yourself.” There are other words there,  _ stay safe,  _ and  _ I hope you find your way home,  _ but Ronan contents himself with giving Gansey weird pickled cabbage and vague advice. And Gansey understands. She grabs his hand, squeezing it and bringing it up to her lips in a chaste kiss. She hopes Ronan understands. “You will turn into a tree if the Beast finds you.” Somehow, Gansey doesn’t think he’s being figurative.

 

She stuffs the cabbage into her bag and steps outside. She looks back once, at the lonely, tender thing that Ronan Lynch is, and almost goes back. But she doesn’t. She just-

 

Turns around, keeps moving forward.


	2. Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where, and we don't know where.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gay rights for noah

Gansey doesn’t need her flashlight, despite it being the dead of night. The moon is unnaturally huge, a perfect half, and it lights up the surrounding area. It makes the walk more pleasant, a little less nerve-wracking when thinking about cryptic sayings about The Beast (capitalization necessary) and The Woodsman (capitalization also necessary) and turning into a tree (capitalization not necessary).

 

There are fireflies at the edge of Gansey’s vision, darting in and out between trees. She can hear owls hooting in the distance, and it warms something inside her. She’s always liked owls. With the ridiculous moon shining down, it turns the forest into something new, bathes it in silvery light. The Unknown has turned into something that comes out of watered down fairytales and well worn middle-grade fantasy novels. Not something that houses a monster named The Beast.

 

Gansey wonders if she’ll meet anyone else from her real life, ala A Christmas Story. Ronan, the ghost of Christmas past; Adam, the ghost of Christmas present; and Blue and Henry, joint ghosts of Christmas future, jostling each other and not so much finishing each other's’ sentences as jumping in while the other takes a breath.

 

She startles at the sound of singing, winding around her from deep inside the trees. A low, soothing voice trills out a melancholy tune, in words she can’t make out. Gansey wonders if this is the fabled Woodsman, or some other solitary figure making its way through the Unknown. She remembers Ronan’s words, but barely registers it. All she wants is to know who’s singing, what they’re singing.

 

Gansey creeps closer to the treeline, hoping to catch a glimpse before whoever they are notices or stops singing. She looks between the trees, and all she can make out is a slender figure, a rocking lantern, and the steady chop of a tree. The singing wraps around her a little more, tightening its hold- she can make out words now,  _ kings and queens and queens and kings,  _ but before the melody can grip her any tighter, an owl hoots close to her and she’s wrenching herself out of its grasp.  _ The Woodsman,  _ she thinks as she hurries down the path. Gansey shivers at how easily he had a hold on her. Was the singing was part of his ploy? Or did he really not know she was there; was he so unconsciously hypnotic? She’s not sure what would be worse.

 

She keeps walking, her encounter with the Woodsman transfiguring the forest into something more sinister. It doesn’t feel as tranquil and ethereal as it once did. She’s eager to get out of plain sight now, clutching the deep red cloak around her for warmth. She misses Blue. She misses Henry.

 

**

Gansey let out a deep sigh. She could see a town a little ways away and walked towards it. From what she could see, there weren’t any buildings with lights on, but there might be an inn that would take her up for the night. It didn’t really matter, so long as she got out of sight of whatever might lurk here.

 

“Hi,” a soft voice whispered in her ear. She jumped, and turned around to see-

 

“Noah,” she breathed.  _ Noah.  _ Gansey wanted nothing more than to sit there for hours, drinking in the sight of him again, just talking and sitting and listening to Noah. It had been easy, to push away all her feelings, pretend that she was at peace with his- fading, if that’s what you could call it, but now he was here and wearing a gold flapper costume and it didn’t even matter that Noah was wearing a flapper costume, because he was in front of her.

 

“You can see me!” Noah bounced on his- literal- heels and grinned. “You know my name!”

 

His joy was infectious, and Gansey couldn’t help but smile back. Noah draped himself over her, sunny and warm despite how cold he physically was.

 

“And you’ve taken up your rightful crown! I’ll have a royal assisting me!” He sounded delighted over this, although Gansey grew more confused as he continued speaking. But that was par the course for Noah, and so she only let a slight frown on her face show as she waited for him to continue speaking. “Any regular old person would do, but a royal-” Here Noah sighed, fanning his face in a ridiculous gesture that was so  _ Noah  _ it hurt. “A royal is just so flattering.” Here he looked up and saw Gansey’s frown.

 

“You  _ will  _ help me, won’t you?” Noah asked, disentangling himself from Gansey. “It’s a lot to ask. No one else can. I spend all my days wandering these fields, this village, looking for someone who can help. So many people seem to just pass me by. I don’t want to wander anymore.” His voice had taken on a more hesitant tone, and his hands clutched at her shirt.

 

Gansey hurried to issue damage control, untangling his hands. “Of course! Of course. What do you need?” Noah smiled again, but it was wobbly. Then he dropped the smile entirely.

 

“I want my body back.” Noah stared at her, mournful and nervous. “Will you help me find my body?” He stretched out one long finger to a field marked with graves. How had she not seen that before?

 

She shot a crooked smile at Noah. “We better get to work, then,” and she strode forward confidently, before tripping on two conveniently placed shovels in her way. She threw one to Noah, but all he could do was grasp at it before it phased right through him. Noah looked at Gansey pointedly, shovel poking through his foot. Gansey winced.

 

“So- if you don’t mind me asking, of course, why are you dressed like a flapper?” She asked while they read the names of each grave.

 

“Would you prefer me wearing a suit?” He winked, leaning on a gravestone in a pinstripe suit and tie. Gansey stared at this bright-eyed Noah, with his rapid mood swings and his breathy, odd voice. He was so affectionate and flirty- was this the real Noah? The one that wasn’t decaying before their eyes? He frowned, seeming to sense where Gansey’s thoughts were.

 

“I didn’t know you could change your clothes.” She said hurriedly, moving onto the next grave.

 

“Of course I can. When you’ve been undead as long as I have been…” Noah trailed off. “Conventions tend to feel… restricting. Like a tie.” The tie disappeared, and in its place returned the flapper costume, this time deep purple. He winked. “The color of royalty.”

 

“I can understand that. But why the flapper costume?”   
  
“ _ Not a  _ costume. Outfit. It’s the fashion of the time. Liberated young women, and prohibition, and speakeasies where you could hold a man- or a woman- close.”

 

“You grew up in the 1920s?” Gansey stared.

 

“Where else?” Noah replied, shooting her an odd look.

 

“Oh I don’t know, I just- oh! Czerny!” Gansey went to wipe off the grime obscuring the rest of the name, but Noah grabbed her hand. It was less a grab, and more so wrapping fingers around her wrist, light yet firm.

 

“This is the right one. There isn’t much time. Start digging, your highness.” Noah held her gaze, black swallowing up his pupils. Gansey couldn’t look away, startled by the sudden change, and the usage of ‘your highness.’ It was comical, but it felt serious coming from Noah and his dark-eyed stare.

 

Gansey dug. The ground was soft and easy to dig, and she let herself get lost in the labor of it, the menial repetition. Noah hovered near her, seeming to grow more agitated as time went on. He made jokes and smiled all the same, but seemed to move around much more. Gansey was making slow progress- she didn’t try to make a habit of grave-digging.

 

“What’s going to happen when you get your body back?” Gansey wondered if he would come back to life. She remembered what he had said to her once, how he didn’t know how to be alive anymore. She felt the same, sometimes. Gansey didn’t know if she could ever be normal again- there had always been something odd about her, something that could be felt no matter how well she wore her masks. Usually, that oddness was welcome, embraced like her Camaro and Glendower and the magical creatures that somehow found her and decided to  _ stay,  _ but this was different. There was a disconnect in her. She was so hungry. She wanted to climb back into her body and make a home out of it again, but Gansey didn’t know if she could- she didn’t know if it was her body anymore, or if it was just a vessel, home for some desperate creature that was lost and untethered and unwelcome. She felt an ache for  _ her  _ Noah, the long-gone Noah that had no more chances, no body to be reunited with.

 

“When I am with my body again, I will get to be whole. I won’t be conflicting any longer. There won’t be wars waged over who gets to take over.” Noah took a breath, eyes shining with want. Gansey continued digging with a renewed vigor. Maybe she couldn’t find a way back so simply, but she could do this for him.

 

An hour trailed by, and Gansey had dug deep. It was still night out, and she was almost done. Noah had collapsed into a pile by the grave a little while ago, letting out excited squeaks every so often.

 

“You’re almost there!” He trilled, falling back and giggling. Noah’s joy was all-encompassing. All she wanted to do was keep that smile on his face. Gansey had a soft smile on her face too, despite the situation she was in, until she hit bone. Noah gasped. All joy had been wiped off his face, replaced with a face of stark fear.

 

“Are you okay? Is- is your body okay?” Gansey anxiously looked from Noah back to the body.

 

“Yes. Yes, it’s good. I just-” Noah broke off here. He looked at her once more, seeming to drink her in. His ghostly hands wrapped themselves around her head, bending it down for a kiss on the forehead. “You are so beautiful. No idea what you’re made of, your highness. Stardust or some other silly thing. And- go to the speakeasy.” Gansey closed her eyes at the kiss, filled with some indescribable feeling that was ballooning up inside her.

 

There was a wind that swept through her, and Gansey opened her eyes. Noah was gone. So were his bones. And she didn’t know what to do. So she sat down by an empty grave, where no one could see her, and wept. She wrapped her cloak around herself and allowed herself this one childish act. No one could see her. No one was asking anything of her. Her grief could swallow mountains whole, could swallow her whole. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to do anything, just wanted to stay with Noah. But Noah wasn’t here anymore. It was just Gansey and her sorrow.

 

Gansey didn’t know how long she sat there, drowning in grief that had been held in for so long, but she heard footsteps, the crunching of grass and dead leaves under someone’s feet, and whirled around. She dragged her eyes’ up the person’s body, work boots and worn out corduroy pants, an ax draped over one shoulder, lantern swinging from the other. And Adam’s face, brown and emotionless.

 

“Adam? You’re the Woodsman?” She hastily wiped away her tears, although not much could be done for her red eyes and slightly swollen face.

 

Though his attention was on her, his eyes seemed to be elsewhere, distant in a way that only happened under the effect of Cabeswater. His Henrietta accent was in full force as he drawled, “I don’t know an Adam, but they do call me the Woodsman.” He smiled slightly, but it wasn’t a kind smile. It was a smile that came when you weren’t yourself, when you were a puppet on a string, trying to assemble some sense of normality.

 

“But- everyone is afraid of you!”

 

“That is the effect I tend to have on people.” As Gansey opened her mouth to reply, Adam- or maybe the Woodsman- cut her off. “I can’t stay long. I have duties to attend to. But don’t stay here. You’re not safe. Go to the bar.” And with that, he shot off into the woods once more, brown coat billowing behind him before Gansey could even think to stop him.

 

She already had so many questions, and her strange encounter with Adam just added more to the pile. He had already disappeared into the woods, lantern blinking out of sight in seconds. But Adam didn’t know his name-. Why did Ronan and Noah know theirs? Why did he go by the Woodsman? Ronan didn’t go by the Farmer; Noah wasn’t the Ghost. Adam’s name was one of the most important things to him, Gansey knew. It was the only thing that had ever been wholeheartedly  _ his-  _ no one could take that away from him. And why was he so far away? That look in his eyes. Was there another Cabeswater here? Was the Unknown just Cabeswater by a different name? Had Adam struck a darker deal with Cabeswater in this reality? She had no answers for any of these questions, and Gansey wondered if she would ever find any. It felt like the deeper she thought about the Unknown, besides the surface level ‘I was transported into a magical forest/different reality whoopsie’ dilemma, the less she understood of it. 

 

Gansey realized she had been sitting on the ground for who knows how long. Both Noah and Adam had told her to go to the bar/speakeasy/etc. She thought that would be as good a place as any to get out of the cold, lonesome outdoors. Slowly unfurling herself from the ball she had curled up in, Gansey stood up and took to the town.


	3. I could not ask you where you came from, I could not ask and neither could you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blue and her quilts.. my rights. my rights.

Gansey has an inkling of who would be in the tavern at this point. Call it a sense, call it exhaustion with this awful, twisted world where all of her friends were miserable and alone, but Gansey has a feeling that Blue will be at this tavern. Maybe with the women of Fox Way, maybe alone.

 

_ Blue.  _ Gansey is terrified and desperate to see her again. She doesn’t want to see what twisted things this world will come up, will try to hurt Blue with. She knows that Blue’s strong, but the very basis of this universe seems to be  _ “how to make all of my friends break” _ . It sucks. Some neverending purgatory where everyone is separated and unable to ever find each other.

 

And now she’s staring up at what she assumes to be a tavern, somewhat unassuming, although ridiculously designed, an amalgamation of what looks to be two different houses smushed together. It looks a little dilapidated, and there’s no sign except for one messily made in the window proclaiming “PSYCHIC ADVICE (+ALE).” 

 

“Excelsior,” she mutters under her breath, and pushes open the door.

 

Immediately, she’s blasted with warmth, something that seems so rare and fragile in the Unknown. There’s a yellow glow coming from all the candles placed haphazardly around the room, perched atop books and on counters and tables, which is probably a fire hazard. The tavern is messy and worn down, wallpaper faded and peeling in places. The women of Fox Way are bustling around the bar. Gansey can see Calla wiping down the bar and Maura wiping down the tables. Persephone dances around with a broom in something reminiscent of, though not quite, sweeping the floor before Jimi snatches it from her. No Blue, though. Gansey doesn’t know if she’s relieved or disappointed. Orla, who is very pointedly not working, notices her first. She steeples her fingers and sends a mischievous smile Gansey’s way.

 

“We’ve got a changeling in our midst,” Orla crows delightedly. Gansey shifts uncomfortably at Orla’s words as all the hustle and bustle in the bar stops. Everyone turns to stare, Calla raising a single, unimpressed eyebrow. Good to know not everything is different here. But- changelings. Faerie children left in place of humans. Does Orla think that’s what she is? Or does she mean something else?

 

Jimi smacks the upside of her head. Orla shoots her an offended look. “Don’t be rude.” Jimi pulls out a chair, sitting down beside her daughter.

 

Calla points to the seat by the bar. “Sit.” Her tone allows no argument. Gansey sits.

 

“No, not a changeling,” Persephone speaks up. Her voice is quiet, breathy, but commands the room. Persephone was always the most enigmatic of the women of Fox Way. “A traveler.”   
  
“A pilgrim,” Maura says.   
  
“A monarch, too, it seems.” Calla flicks one of the points of her crown disparagingly. “Though that bodes the question of what type.” Gansey frowns. She doesn’t like how they seem to be talking over her head but stays silent. Persephone catches her eye and smiles at her. 

 

“We haven’t had a visitor in very long.” She says, sidling up to her.

 

“Well, at least you have each other,” Gansey says, thinking of Ronan and Noah and Adam. She doesn’t say anything in reply, just looks back at her.

 

Maura sets her rag on a table. “What brings you to our tavern, good traveler?”

 

Gansey cycles through all the responses she could give ( _ a ghost told me to, the Woodsman told me to, I was looking for Blue, I don’t know where else to go)  _ and settles on, “I’m looking for some advice, miss.”

 

“You wouldn’t have come here if you weren’t,” Calla snorts. “I’ll take this one.” She says to the others. Orla sits back down huffily.

 

“How do I get back home?” Gansey asks, offering her hands. She’s banking on Calla using her psychometry skills to, if not guide her home, at least tell her how she got here. Calla narrows her eyes and grabs the crown off her head.

 

“You stepped onto the wrong path,” after a few moments of silence. “It is your responsibility to find your way back, false king.” Gansey jolts at that, staring into Calla’s eyes, which betray no emotion.

 

“Leaders aren’t meant to follow,” Persephone agrees. “If you’re here, it’s because you were veering onto the wrong path.”   
  
Maura says, “Or paralyzed by inaction.”

 

“What do you want, pilgrim?” Calla asks, setting the crown back on her head with characteristic roughness.

 

“I want-” She cuts herself off. What  _ does  _ she want? To get home? To solve all the mysteries of this wood? To be seen as she is? “I want to see Blue.” Maybe it’s not the thing she wants most in the world, but right now, she wants to see Blue, however the Unknown may have twisted or broken her. Gansey doubts she’s broken, though- Blue is one of the strongest people she knows, adaptable and steadfast in her ideals. There’s something trying to claw its way out of Gansey’s throat, something whimpering and un-Ganseylike in nature, and she just- wanted to rest her head on Blue’s lap. The un-Ganseylike thing trying to crawl out would be sated if she just had Blue, who was allowed to see all the oddities of her.

 

Blue was so good at finding the softest parts of her and just poking at them repeatedly with a metaphorical (although sometimes physical) stick until Gansey burst open like a pinata. It was both uncomfortable and startlingly relieving, to be forced to spill her guts. She wouldn’t do it otherwise, of course. 

 

“Predictable,” Orla sighs.

 

“The young lover, too,” Jimi said.

 

“You won’t be able to see Blue tonight. She’s deeper in the woods, off the path. It’s raining. You don’t know what you might find, you know.” It felt like a reprimand for the spontaneous gravedigging that had just gone on. Maura eyed Gansey. “You’ll stay here for the night. Orla will show you to your room.” It was an obvious dismissal by her, and Gansey stood up once Orla did.

 

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Gansey mustered up, unwilling to forget her manners in the face of everything else. She smiled. Calla rolled her eyes.

 

Orla wrapped her hand around Gansey’s arm slowly, sending a smirk her way. A candle was in her other hand. She guided her to the stairwell, up to an unassuming door at the end of the hall. “Your castle for the night, your highness,” and pushed open the door.

 

Before Gansey could say thank you, she was shoving the candle into her hand and sauntering away and down the stairs. She sighed, peering into the room. Gansey set down the candle on a side table and looked around the room. It was small and minimally furnished- a side table, a dresser, a bed, and a mirror. The bed was small and the blankets well-worn, dark blue that was faded in spots. Gansey caught a glance of herself in the mirror- she looked like a mess. Her hair was mussed in some places, cowlick sticking up, clothes spattered in mud, and crown much more crooked than she remembered. She felt less real the longer she looked at her body, with its odd frame and masculine nature.

 

Disgust was a feeling she knew well, from the dinners on Capitol Hill where trans people were used more as a talking point than they were treated with humanity. Gansey would paste on her smile and subtly steer the conversation into less choppy waters, all the while feeling shame stick into her throat at the inability to do anything more than smile. Anger, too, was something familiar, the urge to burn down everything she knew and start over again. But this- this was just nothingness. The absence of feeling. No body, no relationship to her body, no ability to feel the ugly, nasty feelings that always welled up inside her when she thought of the permanence of her body.

 

Gansey stripped down and got into bed without another thought, hoping that sleep might find her quickly. It did not. This was not really a surprise, but it was still disappointing, as she was bone tired and also extremely sad. She wondered if Blue had slept in this bed, and felt a shiver of delight. Gone were the days when she and Blue could only ration out affection, stolen touches and meaningful glances, but Gansey still felt illicit delight at the smallest things relating to her. The way her knee-high socks might slip down a little bit and reveal a glimpse of her thighs, or when an ill-fitting ripped t-shirt would show off her shoulder and Gansey would stare in some odd state of enchantment until Blue would send her a questioning look or Henry would poke her in the ribs.

 

God, she was lame.

 

She spent the rest of the night like that, cycling between wanting to go to bed and fear of what might come for her in her dreams. The Unknown was a strange and dangerous place- who knew what her dreams might manifest into? She’d been having nightmares already, ones about death and rebirth and turning into a tree (that one she didn’t understand too much, but with all the plant-based horror they’d been facing recently, Gansey didn’t see it as something that was especially out of the ordinary). It was exhausting.

 

When dawn came, Gansey had gotten just about no sleep but plenty of time to ruminate over, and thus panic over, all of the life choices that had led her to that exact moment, including but not limited to: getting stung by a bee, dying, that time she chose Tropicana over Simply Orange, her fashion sense, and, mostly, being born at all. She had also spent a good deal of time writing in her journal, mostly things along the lines of “ _ Adam is Woodsman -> misunderstood or evil? (No offense intended towards Adam but this world is twisted.) Seems to be most modern of friends that have been met so far; Blue-> Lives in woods. Does not seem out of character…”. _ It wasn’t particularly helpful in understanding this world but it got her thoughts out on paper, which was a plus.

 

A gentle knock came at the door as Gansey began to get up once the sun began shining directly into her eyes. “Are you decent?” Persephone’s voice drifted over to Gansey as she pulled on her pants, corduroy and brown and shoved upon her by Henry one day when he proclaimed that khakis wouldn’t keep her warm at all and also they were ugly. He was right, of course, but nonetheless, she missed her khakis.

 

“Yes, ma’am.” Gansey hadn’t been as close to Persephone as Blue or Adam, but Persephone had always been kind and odd and wild, the three traits she admired most in a person. As Persephone stepped in without a second thought, dressed in a long linen dress, wild hair wild as ever, Gansey reflected on how not-dead she was, and how much Adam or Blue would’ve killed to see her again. She wondered, not for the first time, why she was the one who was living this life, who was bravely trekking through the Unknown. Why she, of all people, was the one chosen to go on this journey.

 

“I’m going to be taking you to Blue, but from then on you’re out of our hands. The path you travel will be yours alone.” She said softly, while Gansey fastened her cloak. She didn’t really know why she had kept wearing the crown, but it felt like the right thing to do, even if she looked ridiculous whenever she looked in the mirror. Gansey hadn’t known what any of them had  _ really  _ meant last night, and this, too, made little sense to her. Trying to puzzle out what the double meaning (and there was always a double meaning) in all of their words was a lost cause sometimes, especially when running on barely any sleep. This was a mystery she wasn’t especially invested in solving, not when there was a Blue to be found.

 

She trailed behind Persephone, listening to the chaos that erupted when the women of Fox Way got up in the morning. They slipped out of the front without a word and went on their way. It was chillier than it was yesterday, and there was a light dusting of frost on the ground. Gansey wondered how Persephone could walk through without so much as a coat on.

 

“Persephone, ma’am? Do you know why Blue lives in the woods?” Gansey finally asked, when the silence went on too long for her comfort. Persephone looked at her for a long while, then replied.

 

“Yes.” The silence stretched on, and she didn’t know if Persephone was going to need to be prompted or that was all she was getting out of her until she continued, “She wants to be there. Blue is connected to the woods in ways that you and I are not. She suffers when she cannot be around them.” That made sense. Blue was half-tree, after all (sort of?), and she must feel a connection to nature. She couldn’t wait to see her reactions to the California redwoods when they got there. If Gansey got back.

 

The two of them trailed off into silence again, Persephone humming a jaunty tune and Gansey fearing the worst, as she often did. The trail through they took was winding, Persephone’s steps sure while she tripped over a root every other step. The trees grew thicker and the foliage darker, more vibrant the deeper they went. There was an oak that Persephone trailed her fingers against almost reverently, bark making out some shape reminiscent of a boy.

It was a peaceful walk, neither of them particularly interested in conversation, and Gansey entranced with the flora and fauna of the Unknown- until she found herself pushed into the treeline. She let out a glorious yelp as she was shoved down, Persephone crouching beside her. There was the sound of footsteps and clanking armor, and Gansey tried to peek out, bewildered. Were there  _ knights  _ in this universe? The footsteps faded away, clanking off into the distance, and Persephone rose in her ungraceful graceful way, Gansey following quickly behind.

 

Persephone offered nothing, just kept on walking. 

 

“Was that a knight?” She leveled a look at her.

 

“Are you honestly surprised?” Persephone sidestepped a root that Gansey immediately tripped over.   
  
“Well, not at this point. But why would we need to hide?” Gansey tripped over another root.   
  
“I just wasn’t interested in engaging in conversation with him. We all have those days.” She sighed, suddenly.

 

“Oh look, we’re here.” A small cottage peeked out of the trees, mismatched stone and a thatched roof and all. Gansey felt her heart race, her palms suddenly sweaty. She hoped Blue wasn’t unrecognizable. Persephone wandered off

 

The door opened before she knocked. “I saw you from my window,” Blue said, leaning against the doorway. She didn’t look much different, besides the tunic she wore, and the rather- pointed ears. Her hair had bits of bark in it, though whether that was a Ye Olde Fashion Choice or some natural state that came about from being a tree light was as yet undetermined. “We’ve got a visitor, too.”   
  
“Yes,” Persephone said calmly. “Here.” She shoved some herbs into her hands, dirt still hanging off them, and went humming back.

 

“Hello, Blue,” Gansey said, nervous and exhausted and relieved all at once. She stood back and appraised her for a moment, taking in the crown and the mud-spackled clothing and the weary expression on her face. Then her face cleared.

 

“Ah- you’re here for an ailment.” Blue walked further into the cottage, waving back at her when Gansey did not follow. “Those are my specialties.” Gansey could do nothing but trail after her, still shocked to see Blue in the flesh, unharmed.

 

The inside of the cottage was cluttered and mismatched and it made Gansey’s heart ache. The windows were open to let light in, illuminating the innumerable quilts draped over every piece of furniture, all made out of seemingly random materials. There was an entire shelf dedicated to bottles of every shape and size, which Blue stood in front of, hands on her hips.  _ God.  _ She wondered if they’d have something like this one day, a home with a bleeding heart made for the both of them.

 

“You’re trying to outrun a prophecy, then?” Blue said, out of the blue.

 

“I- no, I don’t think so.” She leveled an unimpressed look back at her, raising an eyebrow at the stammered, weak response.

 

“You don’t  _ think  _ you have a prophecy?”

 

Gansey huffed. “I just fulfilled a prophecy. I don’t think there’s a  _ new  _ one.”

 

“Hm. That changes things then, doesn’t it?” She grasped a little vial, bright red and filled with an inky substance. “Just enough for you. Here- this will ward you, a little bit. I saw you and knew there was something dogging your tail. Maybe not a prophecy, but- the remnants. A phantom. That’s not to say a prophecy is so abstract that you will keep fulfilling it, but they have effects, you know. Physical, mental, sometimes magical. It’s a malady all itself. This will help.” She smiled at her, and Gansey grasped her hands over the vial. There was something whining inside of her, desperate for Blue, as it always was, and Gansey just couldn’t help herself. She wanted to touch.

 

Blue held her gaze for a long while, something not-quite-human creeping into her eyes. It felt like something was creeping along her skin. Gansey looked down and saw bark growing along Blue’s skin.

 

“Is that normal?” She asked, faintly. Blue glanced down and absent-mindedly picked at it.

 

“Yes, for me. Not for you, certainly.” A mischievous grin. Gansey felt weak. “I’m a changeling, you know.”

 

Gansey didn’t really know how to respond. “Taken by the fae folk?”

 

Blue trailed a finger around her wrist, flipping it so that it was palm up. “You’ve got it all backward. I was given.” 

 

She was silent a moment, tracing the lines on Gansey’s palm. “I can’t tell your future or your past, but I can tell you aren’t of here either. The Unknown isn’t kind to travelers. To changelings.”

 

“But I’m not a changeling.” Blue just hummed.

 

“I’ve carved out a place for myself in these woods. You have a much harder job if you want to leave,” she said, baring her teeth. “Some liquid luck would do you good, but that ward is all I can offer you. Drink up.” And Blue decreed it, so Gansey did as she was told. It was disgusting, and she tried to hide how revolting she found the slimy taste of it. Blue laughed at her anyway.

 

Gansey sat down heavily on a quilt-coated couch. She meant to ask about prophecies, but all that came out was, “Did you make these quilts?”

 

“I need to occupy myself somehow,” she replied breezily. Blue sat next to her, draping one, made out of what looked like flannel, across herself. She sighed. As if sensing what she was about to do, Blue wrested the crown from atop her head and put it on hers, then patted her lap. Gansey lay her head down on her lap, so close to her breaking point. She felt weak from this gesture, this singular moment of peace in a world that was so foreign and malevolent.

 

“What do you know about prophecies?” She finally asked, muffled, into her thighs.

 

“They’re the reason I’m here. Changelings aren’t dropped willy-nilly. I was born here, and I was left here, and my mother- my real one, not the faerie- told me I would die if I ever left here. And so people visit me, trying to break their curses and prophecies and enchantments, and all the while here I am, trying to break my own.” Blue’s hand steadily stroked her hair, but Gansey knew she was more shaken up than she let on, even without seeing her face.

 

A truth for a truth. “I would die if my true love ever kissed me. She kissed me.”   
  


“And you died?” She sounded wry.   
  
“And I died. But I came back. She brought me back.” Gansey turned over to look at her. “Maybe you would come back too.”

 

“I don’t have anyone that would bring me back, though. And don’t say you would. We’re going down different paths. If we ever leave these woods, we aren’t going the same place.” There was a stray piece of hair across her forehead, and Gansey reached up to tug at it. She swatted at her hand fondly.

 

They sat there for what felt like hours, two familiar strangers, when a knock sounded at the door, firm and rhythmic. “That would be your guide. Up you get.” Gansey rolled off her and Blue stood up.

 

The door opened to reveal Henry, in full armor. It was dented in spots, and his sword has lost some of its shine, but that thousand watt smile was still there.

 

“Are you royalty now, Witch?” He asked pleasantly.

 

“I’ll curse you if you call me that again. I haven’t ascended to the crown just yet, but I’ve caught a royal for you. Henry knows more than me about these lands- if anyone can help you find your way out of here, it will be him,” Gansey ambled over to Henry.

 

“Aha! I am at your service, my liege,” he said, doing a truly impressive bow.

 

Blue shoved the flannel quilt into her hands, messily folded. “For your travels. It’s getting cold out.” Blue dropped the crown back onto her head, and Gansey clutched the quilt.

 

Then she leaned down to drop a soft kiss on her cheek. “For you. To keep you warm.”

 

They stood there, looking at each other in silence until Henry drew Blue up into a bear hug, dropping kisses all over her bark-strewn hair. “And from  _ me,  _ Witchgirl!” Blue let out a rapturous cackle as she pushed him away.

 

She let out a heaving breath and shoved Gansey out of the door. “Shoo, or I’ll keep you here forever, and neither of us wants that.” She lingered on the doorstep and took her in one last time. Then she slammed the door.

 

Henry and she sighed at the same time.

 

“Shall we be on our way, then?” Henry offered Gansey his arm, and Gansey, aching, held onto it.


	4. Your sword's grown old and rusty, burnt beneath the rising sun, it's locked up like a trophy, forgetting all the things it's done.

Henry was pretty. This was a fact Gansey knew well. She had observed it often. This was currently irrelevant, but she noticed it anyway.

 

“I think that if you want to get out of here, the best place to start would be the end of the woods, wouldn’t it? The Unknown is a vast and strange place, and even I, who has traversed these woods many a time, have found time and again new and stranger, places. But it’s worth a shot.” Henry shrugged, nonchalantly swinging his sword. His hands were slender, not at all roughened, and they looked startlingly out of place when holding such a prominent weapon- one that had clearly been used often.

 

“Now- I hope you don’t mind me asking- but you’re a knight. One who is often on outings, by the looks of it. Does this land have a monarchy?” Gansey asked. Henry’s sight had startled her, not just for the clanging armor, but for the implications that came with it.

 

“I serve my king, even in his disappearance. One day he walked into these woods. I, nor any other knight, has ever been able to find him. The king ruling, His Majesty King Richard, is certainly doing a fine job. But, you see, my loyalties lie not-so-much with the crown, and rather with our vanished king. I’m sure you can understand loyalty, your highness?” Henry seemed to say this more good-naturedly than anyone else had, but there was still an element of seriousness to it. And she was rattled by the current King’s name. It could surely be a coincidence, but everything in the Unknown seemed to serve a purpose. There were no coincidences, she knew. 

 

Henry sighed and continued on, seemingly oblivious to Gansey’s ongoing breakdown. “I will still do our newly crowned king’s bidding, no matter my feelings.”

 

“I’ve never slain a dragon, but I’d quite like to,” He continued when Gansey only hummed.

 

“Do you really think that dragons are real?” She asked absentmindedly, still turning over the name of  _ King Richard  _ in her head.

 

He turned to look at her then. “Why wouldn’t they be? I know for a fact that a dragon east of here has a hoard of solely periwinkle bed sheets. He’s harmless, though, I’ve met him. We couldn’t visit him, of course, because  _ we  _ are going South. That, my dear companion, is where the Unknown’s trail goes cold. All the strangeness of the Unknown ends between two oak trees. I’ve never gone there, of course. Although I could-” Henry trailed off. She glanced at him, at the way his hands gripped his sword.

 

“You could leave?” She trampled on, hoping it was the right choice.

 

“Well, yes. King Richard has, I guess you could say he dismissed me from knighthood. He allowed me to keep the armor and sword, but I serve only our vanished king now. There’s nothing to stop me from walking between those two oaks but-” Henry paused, choosing his words carefully. “I wait for my king.”

 

Gansey was struck with a horrible, senseless thought. Perhaps this Henry (and Blue and Noah and Ronan and oh god, Adam) wasn’t of an alternate universe. Maybe they were from her world. Maybe it had been her job to bring them with her. Maybe they were trapped, and it was her job to save them and she had  _ failed  _ every single time because she was too caught up in her own fears and assumptions.

 

“I have to go back.” She stopped and turned around. She couldn’t save Noah but she could drag out Ronan like she had so many times, and she could convince Blue, and she could stumble into the woods and call out for Adam and she certainly couldn’t drag him back but she could hope he would see sense. She could hope, at least.

 

Henry looked at her with pity, keeping an easy pace with her. “You can’t go back. You’re not of the Unknown. It doesn't work how you think- you can’t just go back. You’ll end up somewhere else.” Gansey kept on stumbling back, unforgiving of her own selfishness.

 

“You’re with me, though. You can take me back to Blue. And then we can find Ronan. And Adam. And we can all leave.” She sounded confident, even to her own ears. Sometimes it horrified her how easily she could turn on Senator Gansey.

 

Stopping in front of her, Henry held onto her shoulders. “This isn’t their journey. It’s yours. I am a guide, that’s all I am. We can’t go back because you are here. They’ve made their choices, and they weren’t yours to make.” Gansey wasn’t usually so easily swayed, but it was Henry, with his sweet face and gravity-defying hair and smooth, full voice. It was Henry telling her it was hopeless, it was Henry telling her to move on, it was Henry who was so soothing and so sorrowful all at once. And she didn’t know what to do. Not at all.

 

Silence crept in as they looked at each other. Gansey wasn’t so easily swayed, and the trees beckoned to her in ways that, when she looked forward, were so much more appealing than the forest ahead. The two oaks seemed inconsequential in comparison to her friends, maybe even this world. The Unknown was horrifying, antagonistic in ways that seemed to target her softest parts, but it was also beautiful in ways she had never encountered before. She wanted to document every part of this world, crack open its secrets and spend her days solving the mystery of the Unknown.

 

Nonetheless.

 

“Lead the way, my knight.” And on they went.

 

“Will you come with me?” Gansey eventually asked, hoping that she might be able to save at least one of her friends.

 

“Through the oaks?” Henry hummed for a while. “I serve my king. It would be wrong to leave him. He vanished.”   
  
“But- what if he walked through the oaks too? What if there’s something better out there?”

 

“It is my choice to make! And right now, I choose- not to choose! I will decide at the oaks.” Henry said resolutely.

 

They continued on in silence, though Gansey was ready to burst with questions. She wanted to know  _ so much,  _ and maybe Henry had answers.

 

“Do you know much about the Woodsman?” Gansey was paying careful attention to Henry’s facial features, but he didn’t show any outward reactions.

 

“He doesn’t operate under the domain of the king. Neither does the Beast. I know King Richard has tried hunting them down, but they’re nigh impossible to find. Anyway, I find it rather arrogant to try and keep magic under lock and key. It finds its way out.” Henry stabbed the air with his sword a bit. “That’s not to say they’re harmless- many a wanderer have found themselves at their hands. No one is sure if they work together, or if they are just two agents of death who cross paths.”

 

God, what had happened to Adam? “Do you know how they came about? I can’t imagine they just popped up out of nowhere.”   
  
“I… can’t say I remember a time without them, to be honest. Stories of the Beast and the Woodsman are just that. Stories. Folktales. Maybe they’ve been here forever, maybe they’ve been here for barely a few years. But stories change. They evolve- maybe he went by a different name, or took upon the role of the Woodsman. Good information isn’t so easy to come by, you know.”

 

Gansey listened to Henry attentively, taking in every thread and trying to make something coherent out of it. And eventually, she decided there was nothing left to do- except, of course, to leave. She wanted to get out of the Unknown, of course, but there was a mystery that she couldn’t leave without solving. 

 

So while Henry was talking, rambling on about something that Gansey would undoubtedly find interesting if she was actually listening, she slipped off the path and into the trees.

 

Distantly, she could hear Henry cry out. Something about his king, and wasn’t it odd that Henry found his king once she left. But his voice faded away after a while, and she walked deeper into the trees. Gansey strained her ear for the Woodsman’s song, stumbling along blindly. She walked deeper and deeper into the words and heard nothing even as the trees grew more closely together, as the temperature dropped, as it grew darker.

 

Then, in the distance, a light.

 

A swinging lantern, and the low voice of Adam, singing out, steadily,  _ Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go, I owe my soul to- _

 

Something grabbed her. Someone. Henry.

 

She saw his face, the definition of some terrified delight Gansey had learned to associate with him, and realized that they were running, with barely a glance back at the lantern, little more than a pinprick now.

 

Henry was holding her hand, she considered distantly. They were holding hands and running. This had probably happened before.

 

“Why,” Henry panted out. Gansey waited for him to go on, but that seemed to be it.

 

“Because,” Gansey responded. They were officially at an impasse. Henry, still panting, sat down and glared up at her.

 

“ _ Why,”  _ he stressed, “did you have to run?” Gansey shrugged.

 

“Because I wanted to see Adam- the Woodsman,” she corrected.

 

Henry snorted. “At least you’re honest.” Then he stood up and dusted off his already rather dirty armor. “Onward, before you have any wilder Woodsian urges.”

 

And onward they went. But not really. Because she could still hear the song of the Woodsman trailing behind her, could see flashes of something not-quite-right from between the trees. But she didn't mention it. Henry wouldn’t be able to do anything, and Gansey was mostly sure she didn’t want him to.

 

And onward they went, but not really, because she could feel the pull of some other time- not this one, but one almost. Stacked on top of this one. As if this had happened before. As if she had done this before. So maybe they weren’t going forward. Just repeating the motions.

 

“Have you made up your mind about the oaks?” Gansey asked, just to make conversation. She certainly had.

 

“We’re not quite there yet, my dear king. I have time.” Gansey dug her thumbnail into her forefinger, quieting the urge to run away again- not to the Woodsman, but away from  _ the king.  _ This land and its monarchy. It was almost designed to torture her.

 

“Wait. Before the oaks- I have a request.” Gansey stood still, not sure of what she was about to say. “Kiss me?” Henry blinked at her, soft eyes going wide. But he cupped her head with his slender hands and leaned in nonetheless, and she felt warm with the press of his lips against her. And then she couldn’t breathe. She was gasping for air as her throat closed up and she stumbled back.

 

Henry’s eyes were wide with panic. “I think this has happened before. I think you’re the vanished king, aren’t you? I’ve served my king for as long as I can remember, but when he left I couldn’t remember his name. I don’t know yours, either. But I remember this. I remember the- the dying. And then you walked between the oaks and you left. But you can’t leave. You can’t leave me again. All I have ever done is wait for you to come back and you cannot leave me you cannot  _ die.”  _ Henry took a shuddering breath while Gansey clawed at her throat. It would do no good, she knew as Henry rummaged through her bag. There was an EpiPen in one of the pockets, but she was already dead. Just like a bee sting. But she didn’t have the energy to tell Henry that. She let him ramble on. Did this Henry even know what an EpiPen was? Probably not.

 

She drifted off to the sound of Henry’s panic, black spots appearing in her vision.

 

And then she woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> henry has been diagnosed with bees. and also weird relationships.


	5. And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree, the virgins are all trimming their wicks, the whirlwind is in the thorn tree, it’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

The tired face of the Woodsman looked down on Gansey.

 

“You knew what was going to happen, didn’t you?” Adam drawled, Henrietta accent in full force. He didn’t sound worried or angry or scared. He just seemed to be making an observation.

 

“You just can’t keep well away,” he continued.

 

Gansey was still attempting to process the fact that yes, she was alive, and yes, she had died from Henry’s lips. Not like how she died from Blue, though. This was like it was a bee sting.

 

So what came out, despite all that she wanted to say, was a gasping “Adam?” These were not her finest moments.

 

“I’m the Woodsman. That’s all there is. Won’t do you any good trying to dig deeper.” Adam looked the perfect depiction of a laborer, as if he had jumped out of Gansey’s U.S History textbook.

 

He also looked dead.

 

Adam didn’t look like he knew what to do with his body. Any moment he wasn’t chopping at a tree he spent hunched over as if he yearned to be forgotten. His hands worked with the fervent dispassion of someone who didn’t own them. And his eyes- unfocused and dull, the complete opposite of Adam’s normally sharp and observant ones.

 

The biggest question was who was controlling the puppet that was the Woodsman, and how she would cut the strings.

 

“Would you want to come with me? Through the oaks?” Gansey decided this would be the best course of action.

 

Adam blinked, hands stilling in that incessant chopping. “The two oaks are a myth. There’s no way to leave the Unknown.”

 

“What?” Gansey was aghast.

 

He repeated, more slowly, “The two oaks are a myth. And it’s my turn for questions now. Why do you want to know the Woodsman?”

 

Gansey didn’t hesitate, even in the face of the revelation that she might never leave. “Because you’re more than this. I want to help you.”

 

He chopped and he chopped and he chopped but Adam’s expression didn’t change. “This is my choice. I don’t need help.” He didn’t even falter. That _incessant_ chopping. She wanted to wrench the ax out of Adam’s hands. She wanted to break that lantern. She wanted to set all of the Unknown on fire. She settled for pulling out a tuft of grass.

 

“Why did you decide to do this, then? Why do you let people see you as a murderer? Why do you let the Beast control you?” Gansey was so, so tired. She hated this uselessness. The fact that she had left every single one of her friends alone and stranded and couldn’t do anything about it. She hated how they all thought she was a man. She hated how the prophecy called her a man, and how _she still died._ She just wanted to sleep; she never could.

 

“Why would you say his _name?”_ Adam hissed. There were branches taking root, she observed. They wrapped around her quite snugly. And Adam had stopped chopping, finally stopped chopping that oak tree. _Oak._

 

“You’re destroying the oaks.” Her voice was neutral. Adam sent her a wretched look, apologetic and terrified and angry all at once. He had come to her side, resolutely pulling at branches and chopping the thicker ones.

 

A voice behind her called out, and it had been there the whole time. She knew this. Two words, “He is,” sent Adam back. And she knew, instinctively, who it was. This whole journey, the Beast had been with her.

 

As Adam turned back to his work, hands steady but eyes steely, the first sign of true emotion, she looked to the monster she knew.

 

Glendower, the vanished king, Gansey herself, looked back at her. “Oh. Hello.” She sounded surprised, or in shock, maybe. But she wasn’t. Not really. It was more a fading away. Loss of the senses. Loss of her body, if she had ever had it. And her body never really was hers. It was just some stumbling creature with the misfortune to be inhabited by her. It belonged to others, really. Like the Beast. Or her parents. Or the entity that was the Ivy League.

 

She could smell smoke. She could feel heat on her skin. There was the taste of blood- hers or someone else’s- on her lips. An aching pain in her side, a sword loosely gripped in her hand. The fire threatened to engulf her. If she could just get _up-_

 

The sound of a tree being felled snapped her back into time. She gasped out a pained, “Adam!” The Beast or Glendower or the Vanished King or Gansey or all of them laughed, and it echoed across the trees.

 

“That isn’t his name. You’d know all about chosen names,” the Beast drawled, speaking in Welsh and Welsh-accented English and the Old Money Virginia she knew so well all at once. One mouth and three voices. One face and three people.

 

“Adam, Adam, just let me help you,” she pleaded at him, ignoring the Beast entirely. He had begun with the second oak, and every steady chop seemed to be cutting into her own skin, too. She could’ve sworn she felt blood seeping through her sleeve.

 

She remembered Henry’s words. How they were beyond saving. How it was her journey. She didn’t believe that, not really. But she was dying again, and really she’d been dying or dreaming for ages already.

 

And she wasn’t just Gansey anymore. She was Glendower, and the vanished king, and yes, the Beast, too. And she was named. And she had a sword.

 

“None of you know my name,” she said, drawing up every last bit of her energy, every last memory she had of true royalty, even as branches wrapped around her and tried to choke her and even tried worming their way into her throat. “I am Gansey. I am Gansey and I am not your king.” She tilted her head up skywards, trying to stay alive for one last futile breath, and the Unknown laughed. The Unknown laughed and it cried and it gasped out its last breath and Gansey had a sword. The Beast was screaming, it was dying, and so was Gansey, but it was close, close enough to kill. Blood already on her sword, blood from three different wars, she drove the sword into the Beast one last time as it writhed on the ground, three different people and no one all at once.

 

She could see Adam bleeding, too. Adam bleeding and Gansey bleeding and the Beast dead and the Unknown dying before her. She closed her eyes, so unfathomably tired, as her world melted around her.

* * *

 

Gansey dragged herself out of the oaks, bleeding, to where Henry and Blue (the _real_ Henry and Blue) were.

 

It was still 11 PM, though maybe half an hour had passed. And it was still Halloween.

 

The two of them turned at the sound of sneakers slipping in the mud. Henry let out a gasp at what Gansey imagined was a truly pitiful display. Gansey paid that no mind, as she was currently collapsing.

 

“What _happened_?” Blue sounded furious, and Gansey had never been so grateful.

 

“Call AdamRonan.” Gansey had enough sense to know what she needed to do. There would be time to process everything that had happened (though she wasn’t sure she wanted to). But right now, she needed to set things right.

 

“Gansey, darling dearest, let’s perhaps stop the bleeding first?” Henry said as he and Blue went about dragging her up.

 

“Most of it’s not mine,” she said.

 

“That’s not as comforting as you seem to think it is.” Blue sounded unimpressed and horrified at the same time, which was a delightful spectacle that Gansey was so happy she could actually _hear._

 

Hours or minutes or seconds later, Gansey was still a little messed up with time, she was in the Camaro and no longer bleeding profusely (she had exaggerated a little on how much blood was actually hers) and Henry was dialing Adam with a put-upon sigh.

 

The crackly, muffled voice of Adam came out through Henry’s speakers, a gloriously irritated “What is it that’s so important you had to call me at 1 in the morning, Cheng?”

 

Gansey grabbed the phone from Henry, hissing, “Get Ronan please.”

 

“Gansey? If you just wanted Ronan you could call him, you know.” Adam sounded confused and still irritated and slightly amused. He was probably rolling his eyes over homework for some niche science class, hiding a smile even though there was no one to witness it.

 

“You have the best chance of actually getting him to pick up and I need all of you here for this. So call him or Skype him or whatever it is that you do when Ronan gets bored of looking at cows for hours,” Gansey spit, not angry or irritated, just anxious and regal. There were a few minutes of silence, interrupted every so often by Adam’s pointed mumbling about how horrible his friends were. Blue was glaring, though at Gansey or the phone, she wasn’t sure. Henry merely looked bored and excited and anxious all at once, which was par for the course for him.

 

“He’s here. Now, what do you want, O Good Lord Who I Must Drop Everything For?” Adam said, ignoring Henry’s stage whisper of how Lynch was rubbing off on him in more ways than one. “Ronan says to tell Cheng to fuck off.”

 

Gansey waited for them all to quiet down.

 

“I’m a girl,” she said, to rip the band-aid off.

 

“I’m still Gansey, though. You hear, Lynch?” She prompted when both Adam and Ronan, as well as the inhabitants of her Camaro, lapsed into silence.

 

“He says he heard. And some stuff that can be loosely translated as enthusiastic support.” Adam said quietly. “Which- for what it’s worth, same from me.”

 

Gansey smiled. Henry dropped a smacking kiss onto her cheek, while Blue draped her arms around her neck.

 

“Love you, Gansey.” Blue sounded enthusiastic and wonderfully, wonderfully sincere. She wanted to live in this moment, this instance of unadulterated love and acceptance for who she was.

 

“I love you guys so much.” She went silent for a moment, trying not to tear up, when a thought occurred to her.

 

Gansey grabbed her bag, which lay discarded on the seat beside her, and dug through it. She emerged with a quilt and a jar of pickled cabbage. She had no idea how to feel. Probably some sort of relief she hadn’t gone insane. But she felt nothing except a cocktail of mixed emotions that made her want to throw up, really.

 

And so she said, “I should probably tell you all about the alternate world I ended up in for two days.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been REAL FUN lads. I had a time. i guess i should plug my tumblr here again? im @wellsforboys on there!

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhhh yeehaw. That's what people put at the ends of chapters right? Right.


End file.
